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| Marrubium vulgare: Horehound |
I began studying herbs when I was in high school. While other people were at football games and movies, I was in the library. My taste in books was varied. I read lots of murder mysteries and I loved books about plants. Although I never planted a garden back then, I drew elaborate garden plans on old math papers and eventually all that planning practice paid off when I was a graduate student and found myself living in an apartment in an old house, the back yard of which had been turned over to me to ‘do something with’. After considerable earth moving and wall building, one shovelful and rock at a time, I was ready to plant. I planted an eclectic selection of herbs, annuals and perennials and some of those plants are still with me today, three houses later. For the first time, I could look into all the gardening catalogs I had been acquiring and actually buy some of herbs I had been lusting over.
That year my love affair with all things herbal began. I have steadily increased the numbers of herbs in my collection and increased the size of my gardens to compensate. My herbal experiments have become increasingly daring and my successes and failures have become increasing spectacular.
Take for example the first time I tried making hard candy.
